Review: Kaze | Sailormoon
Author: Kaie
Review by: Usagi-star
Kaze | Sailormoon
Content: ****.5
Originality: ****.5
Design/layout: ***.5
Technicality: *****
Overall statement: A simple, functional, and highly original site with many features you've probably never seen before.
(The maximum amount of stars is five.)
6/28/99 
Feww! Been too long since I last reviewed! I apologize to Kaie for taking so long to review his/her (I guess I don't know ^^) wonderful site.

The main page uses frames, but in a very useful way. The top frame has a javascript set up so that when you click on a japanese word, the boxes in the frame will show you the definition. A wonderful idea. I love the proverb, it fits very well there. ^^ I like how the index is sort of framed in a dark blue color, and the picture on the right side. Aesthetically, this page is easy on the eyes, simple, and functional, all of which are musts for any page.  I'm not so sure about the picture to the left, it looked fine when I first saw it but now I wonder if it might be unnecessary. Try moving it, or taking it out, see what that looks like. Also, everything is blue and I like that, but not everything is the same type of blue. That's just a nitpick. ^_-

Now we proceed to "Gaibu Taiyou Kei Senshi", or "Exterior Solar System Warriors". It has the same layout as the front page, only in grey (ok, I don't know why I pointed that out when you can see it yourself *_*). I like the background and the uniform layout, but the pictures in the table are larger than the boxes, leaving a blank space below the links. Each outer senshi's name is described here in a  chart that can be a liiitle bit confusing and in writing. Then there are some stats directly from the manga which are translated for us. I am impressed most by the translations on this page; especially the image songs, I could never have figured those out. ^^ On Haruka's image song page and Michiru's survey results page, we get forwarded to a strange address that cannot be found. (?) The Uranus image gallery could be arranged to load more quickly and I would love to see more galleries for the other senshi.

Shattered Coming proves to be very long and interesting. The author has a writing style similar to his webdesign style; adequately descriptive, not too gaudy, and to the point. It's hard to tell which part is which and how to access them, but the ones I did  read were interesting.

"Red Moon, No Stars" is something I've never seen before; a text-based, interactive fiction game based on Sailor Moon. Since I enjoy text-based games I would be one to  download this. It's a great, new idea.

The Anime Lyric Translator offers more of those translated lyrics, sometimes translated by other people, but credit is always given. This provides a way for those of us who are just starting to learn Japanese to see what each word means individually as well as how they fit together, and putting the Japanese words with translations for each word leaves room for us to reach our own conclusions as to what the exact translation is. In some cases, we even get to see the Japanese writing alongside the text, which is very nice. From this page we can also access a description of the frame and the script in it, which is very thorough and considerate of the author to provide.

Senshi Spotlight is another original feature; summaries of the S season, but for a specific reason: each senshi has an episode dedicated to exploring  their personalities, and this is a nice way of enabling us to read about them. Hopefully, we will see more soon. ^^

Uraeshi Yuusuke and Usagi are compared next; several important points are similar in both characters. I've never seen Yuu Yuu Hakusho, and some of this leaves me in the dark, but for the most part it would be interesting to SM fans. I would love to see more character coparisons here in the future.

"Superlatives" is a fun section, however I'd like it if it were explained ore clearly what is was based on. However, it's yet another original feature that is fun to read (despite the Uranus bias...ahem ^^).

Clicking on the Five Paths, I expected something about Buddhism, but found a listing of the five elements as seen in many anime series. I' not sure quite where this information was found, but it is a nice supplement to the astrological aspect of SM that many don't fully realize.

The "adopt" page looks sort of old and useless, and it forwards me to a weird address, but the pictures are kawaii. ^^

The Miscellaneous section is more anime-related than SM-related, but it is entertaining. The "about Kaie" page still leaves me in the dark about Kaie's gender, but since Kaie is referred to as "he" throughout the page I'll guess Kaie is a guy. ^_-

And this concludes our reviewing session! I enjoyed this page, mostly because of its  outstanding originality and clear, simple interface and design. What I think you could improve here is adding to what you have; if you're going to feature all the outer senshi, give them each a gallery, plus insights and some more of the interesting information that you have already posted. I like the interactive features, and the  overall originality, but some sections could be expanded into a lot more (ie, the S summaries section). If you want, you can spice up the design with more graphics and I know you can think of sommething pretty, but that's  not really necessary; the strong point of this site is obviously content. Keep it up!

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